Cleavage /(?)/
Cleav·age
Cleavage
n.
- The act of cleaving or splitting.
- The quality possessed by many crystallized substances of splitting readily in one or more definite directions, in which the cohesive attraction is a minimum, affording more or less smooth surfaces; the direction of the dividing plane; a fragment obtained by cleaving, as of a diamond. See Parting. (Crystallog.)
- Division into laminæ, like slate, with the lamination not necessarily parallel to the plane of deposition; -- usually produced by pressure. (Geol.)
Phrases & Compounds
- Basal cleavage
- cleavage parallel to the base of a crystal, or to the plane of the lateral axes.
- Cell cleavage
- multiplication of cells by fission. See Segmentation.
- Cubic cleavage
- cleavage parallel to the faces of a cube.
- Diagonal cleavage
- cleavage parallel to ta diagonal plane.
- Egg clavage
- See Segmentation.
- Lateral cleavage
- cleavage parallel to the lateral planes.
- Octahedral cleavage
- cleavage parallel to the faces of an octahedron, dodecahedron, or rhombohedron.
- Prismatic cleavage
- cleavage parallel to a vertical prism.